BTC strategic reserves and artificial intelligence fill the Halving gap

Most miners turning to artificial intelligence are still mining Bitcoin.

Written by: Prathik Desai

Compiled by: Block unicorn

In April 2024, the fourth Bitcoin halving quietly reset the game rules for miners. The reward for each block dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. At first, the market did not care. Prices barely fluctuated. But for miners, whose profits were already slim, the math became much more difficult overnight.

This means they need to put in the same effort but only get half the return.

Maintaining the original model means paying energy costs and upgrading equipment. Some people have tried, but most have seen their income decrease. The profitability of mining has dropped from an average of about 0.08 dollars per day (1 terahash/second) to 0.055 dollars per day (1 terahash/second).

Everyone knows that the halving is coming. Most people are preparing for a business transformation, stopping the sale of the Bitcoin they have mined. Unchanged costs and decreased income mean reduced profit margins. They are turning to hoarding Bitcoin, betting on its long-term value.

They did not stop their steps. Michael Saylor's Strategy (then known as MicroStrategy) has set a template through its bet on Bitcoin.

Marathon Mining (Marathon) has become the largest miner by treasury size, having added over 30,000 BTC to its balance sheet in just over a year since the halving. The company has mined at least 8,900 BTC and purchased over 21,000 BTC from the open market.

Riot retained every single Satoshi (approximately 5,000 BTC) it mined in the 12 months following the halving, and during this period, it purchased over 5,000 BTC. Even Hut 8, which has a relatively lower output, has added over a thousand BTC since the halving and has hardly sold any of its accumulated Bitcoins.

Hive has recovered from the wave of transitioning from Ethereum to Proof of Stake (PoS), with its Bitcoin reserves increasing by over 25% since the halving, subsequently selling part of its reserves to support expansion. Core Scientific, after clearing its wallet post-bankruptcy, has accumulated over 900 Bitcoins since the halving, with 700 of those coming from a single quarter. This is unusual for a miner that once sold every coin to survive.

These are not behaviors typical of Bitcoin miners in normal operations, but rather a desperate attempt to evolve.

This indicates one thing: hoarding Bitcoin is no longer a stopgap measure. This shows confidence in the rise of Bitcoin, but also reveals something else.

Establishing a Bitcoin treasury helps with long-term price appreciation. However, asset appreciation does not equate to income and cannot cover daily operating expenses.

After the halving, profit margins are tighter. The cost of mining Bitcoin is higher than ever, and many people realize that the old model—mining, selling, and repeating—is no longer viable. Some miners find that they have the foundation for transformation: facilities built for high-energy-consuming machines. They are beginning to repurpose their infrastructure for AI computing.

Core Scientific took the lead with a high-profile move. In June 2024, it signed a 12-year, $3.5 billion GPU infrastructure hosting agreement with artificial intelligence cloud provider CoreWeave. This is one of the largest artificial intelligence hosting deals in history. The contract provides Core with a long-term source of income that is almost independent of Bitcoin prices and has also sparked a quiet competition in the mining sector.

Riot has also taken similar measures. In January 2025, Riot suspended its 600 MW Bitcoin mining expansion plan at its Corsicana ( location and began reselling the site to hyperscale data centers and artificial intelligence companies. The company shifted from expanding its computing power to seeking artificial intelligence tenants. The original design of the Corsicana site was to scale up, with 1 GW of power and a vast footprint. Riot believes that instead of installing more ASICs, it is better to lease them to AI operators.

Hut 8 chose a different direction. It spun off its entire mining division into an independent entity called American Bitcoin, retaining 80% of the shares. This allows the parent company to focus on data center infrastructure and artificial intelligence services. In September 2024, Hut 8 launched Highrise, a GPU as a service division, starting with one thousand Nvidia H100s, and signed a five-year contract with a cloud customer. Earlier this year, it announced the establishment of a 300-megawatt high-performance computing park in Louisiana.

Hive, leveraging its long history of GPU mining before the Ethereum merge, relies on its traditional advantages. It has repurposed over 4,000 old GPUs for cloud computing and then deployed H100 and H200 clusters in Quebec. By early 2025, Hive's AI annual revenue run rate will reach $20 million, with plans to reach $100 million the following year. It sold some Bitcoin in 2024 but retained most of what it mined that year.

Even the most steadfast supporter of Bitcoin, Marathon, has adjusted its direction. In September 2024, it appointed two veterans from the artificial intelligence industry to its board. The company developed immersion cooling equipment specifically designed for AI inference workloads. In early 2025, the company began exploring data center hosting services for AI clients. As of May 2025, the company holds over 49,000 Bitcoins. Since April 2024, the company has sold almost none of its mining earnings.

Iris Energy is fully betting on artificial intelligence. It has sold all the Bitcoin it mined to aggressively expand its data centers. By mid-2025, it has deployed over 4,000 GPUs and is building facilities in Texas and British Columbia to accommodate 20,000 GPUs. Although funds are still low, its infrastructure is rapidly developing.

Some miners view Bitcoin as a strategic reserve. Others see it as a liquid inventory to support growth. But regardless, they are attempting to extend the same assets—cheap land, idle energy, grid access, and specialized cooling systems—into areas that are more useful than simply mining.

Relying solely on mining can no longer guarantee survival.

The electricity price remains unchanged. Hashrate continues to rise. Miners who survive have achieved this by increasing their options. Some have become service providers, some have become cloud computing providers, and many are still experimenting to find a way out.

Currently, most miners are still mining Bitcoin. But this is no longer the entire business. It is just one of many sources of income, which may include AI hosting, GPU leasing, energy brokerage, and even sovereign-level computing infrastructure in the future.

It is still too early to determine whether miners' shift to artificial intelligence has been successful, as the data is too limited. Although the high-performance computing (HPC) business has not yet fully expanded to everyone, the profit margin per megawatt for artificial intelligence computing is significantly higher than that of mining, which is helpful.

For some people, it has begun to show some signs.

Iris Energy's artificial intelligence service revenue has grown from negligible to $2.2 million by June 2025. This relatively new business segment has a profit margin of 98%, while the mining business has a profit margin of 75%.

However, this is not a foolproof strategy. The cost of building artificial intelligence facilities is high. It requires not only electricity but also networks, redundancy, cooling, and customers who can continuously fill the racks. Not every miner can succeed. Some will overbuild, some will miss market opportunities, and some will still be completely reliant on Bitcoin years later.

This industry is no longer singular.

They started with stacking blocks. Then they began to accumulate Bitcoin. Now, they are stacking GPUs. However, Bitcoin mining has not stopped.

Most miners turning to artificial intelligence are still mining Bitcoin.

Last month, the Bitcoin hash rate reached an all-time high, far exceeding the levels during the halving. This indicates an increase in mining difficulty and costs, as miners need to invest more computing resources to solve blocks and earn rewards.

In this case, it becomes difficult for businesses to achieve economic benefits by selling mined Bitcoin at lower profit margins. Unless the price of Bitcoin rises or transaction fees soar, only the most efficient operations can be profitable.

Improving efficiency may mean reducing power and computing costs. This may even mean holding Bitcoin and only selling when the price is well above the average level after the halving. This explains why most miners are turning to artificial intelligence for higher returns on investment.